Canon ZR90: It catches moments of fun for family posterity

Author's Rating:

Pros: Easy-to-use, creates jpeg files.

Cons: You need good lighting.

The Bottom Line: 
As one of the more affordable camcorders on the market, the Canon ZR90 is replete with features and very functional for recording family memories.

Author's Review
Now is the winter of our analog
made glorious summer by this son of Eps.
All the tins that cluttered up our house are
In the deep bosom of the garbage buried.
Now are our brows bound up with digital movies,
Our singing son caught up for posterity,
Our 35 mm changed to moving jpegs,
Our dreadful prints to delightful podiums.

Ah, yes, the travesties (which is not to say tragedies—no one is dead. Yet.) that occur when you put high-tech digital gadgets in the hands of a classical bookworm. Leaving behind the skewered Shakespeare, with apologies to his crook-backed villain, I’ll confess that I’ve been having way more fun than I should with my new Canon ZR90 Digital Camcorder.

It’s a toy I never expected to have.

First off, we hadn’t even entered the digital age with cameras yet. I was still somewhat ornery about using automatic cameras over a perfectly good, albeit manual Pentax 35mm. But at Christmas, my parents gave my husband and I a digital camera and docking station. It was a well-received gift as I had been borrowing my brother’s digital camera as I pursued my crafts business and needed online photos.

Then came the gift from Epinions—the Canon ZR90 Digital Camcorder, and I suddenly feel as if I’ve entered the 21st Century (maybe someday soon I’ll even update my operating system to something more recent than Windows 95).

First, let me say that it is a delightful toy—especially in the hands of a family that is already prone to hamming things up. It’s fun and very easy to figure out—even for someone as technologically challenged as myself (keep in mind, we don’t even own a television, much less a VCR or any other video equipment).

The Components

The first trick was figuring out what all the pieces were:

The camera itself. This one was easy. It was the handy camera looking thing that fit easily in your palm—especially with the strap traversing the bottom that you can slip your hand in and steady the camera at the same time. It’s pretty lightweight, weighing in at 17 ounces.

The LCD screen pops out (though it might have been nice if the switch had a little more oomph to it. The screen doesn’t actually pop out—it unlatches and then you have to slowly pry it open) for easy viewing while taping. There is still a viewfinder that you can use in lieu of the LCD screen or (and this is my son’s favorite) while you have the LCD screen facing the person being taped while you use the viewfinder to point at the right action.

Other features on the camera include the built-in speaker, battery compartments, a program selector (you can switch between mini dv tapes and memory cards), numerous control and menu buttons, tripod sockets, and numerous plugs for recharging, hooking up to computers, and hooking up to televisions.

A remote control. Now how cool is that? Pity I have yet to be able to figure out how to use it (I suppose someone who has already mastered the intricacies of a television remote control would find this a breeze, but we’ve already established my qualifications, right?). The Dominator (my son’s nickname) and I tried taping a puppet show, but I was unable to get the remote control to function—not even after several sessions with the user manual. I don’t think it is non-functional, though. I think it was user error.

Battery pack. The battery pack is what makes the camera run—something that was fairly easy to figure out even before reading the manual. The camera also comes with a power cord to recharge the batteries.

Lens cap and strap. These are pretty basic accessories and work just as they are supposed to.

Wide angle lens. While I could see a true camera aficionado needing several lens, I was pleased that they included this one as it covers all of the basic needs that I’ll have for family recording.

Memory card. The Canon includes an 8 MB card to get you started. This equates to about 30 seconds worth of video. It’s nice so that you can get started when you open the kit, but it is far from sufficient to do anything with.

Must-Have Add-Ons

I know, I know. If you’ve just spent $400 to $500 on a camcorder, you’re probably not in the mood to spend more money. But that’s your investment to get started. You don’t buy a camera without knowing you’ll have to buy film or memory cards, right? This is no different. There are a few more things that you’re going to need and a few things which are simply convenient extras.

Memory cards. The memory card that comes with the camcorder is 8 MB—or about 30 seconds. We filled that up with one extemporaneous “super funny dance” from my son singing in his underwear and then thought we were done. Memory cards range in price, but I’ve seen 1 Gig cards for as little as $89—a price I’m still somewhat astounded by. Wasn’t it just a few years ago when that kind of memory would have sold for four figures?

Mini-tapes. The memory cards are nice because there are a lot of camera options that work best with the memory cards, but the tapes are really the more functional ways to use the camera—and far more affordable. For $13 you can get a pack of 3 tapes that record up to 60 minutes each.

Tripod. You’ll need something to place the camera on to get rid of some of the jerkiness that so many home movies have. Granted, the camera does have an electronic image stabilizer, but it isn’t perfect. And, if you can get your remote control to work, then you’ll definitely need the tripod.

Bags. Now that you’ve invested the money in a camcorder, memory cards, and tapes, you need a way to keep them safe, right? I was able to find a very utilitarian bag for around $15 that not only fit all the accessories, but was able to hold my camera as well.

How does it function?

It’s extremely easy to set up and get started with. While I at first thought it would be good for producing monologue/audition tapes for my husband, I’ve found that the sound quality is not quite as high as I would like it for such things. Perhaps if I bought an optional directional mike it would fix that. For the most part, though, this is a camera for recreational use, not for creating professional quality movies.

The ZR90 has zoom capability that is much better than most cameras in its range: the optical zoom (meaning how far the lens will zoom out) is 22 times and the digital zoom (which you have to find on the menu functions) is 440 times. It’s almost like using a student microscope.

While it has a foot to hold a flash, it does not come with its own light, so you’ll have to make sure you’ve created the lighting conditions you want for good taping.

The camera does have night modes, but I was not able to get very high quality images using the night mode or the super night mode which is suppose to let you record in very dark places.

The ZR90 also comes with several program modes. While the automatic one will work in most situations, you can also use sports mode, portrait mode, spotlight, sand and snow, and low light.

After taping, you can play with several digital effects if you taped on the memory card. You can add fade-ins, wipes, jumps, and flips. Just like many photo software programs, you can change your images to art, black and white, sepia, mosaic, ball, cube, wave, color masking, or mirror. There are also options for multi-image screens. I found some of these effects complicated to use, but they made for fun playing.

Another complaint I have isn’t really about the camera, it’s about the user manual. (I suppose it is appropriate that a book person can’t resist a few comments about the manual.) It was poorly organized and hard to follow for start-up. It began by introducing you to the camera components, but then it switched over to digital effects. I was left wondering what you were suppose to tape things on and what happened after you used up your 30 seconds. Eventually, I found the information, but I had to do a lot of switching back and forth to figure out what was going on.

Our son is perhaps the biggest fan of the camera and we now have recorded for posterity several puppet shows and musicals about knights, sailors, and jungle beasts.

And thanks to Epinions and my son’s half-naked super-funny dance, I now have material for my son’s bachelor party.